open my heart and let it bleed onto yours
by piratesmiley
Summary: "The air is leaving in protest of their continued existence. Jemma wants to make a case for it to stay, but like all things natural, it behaves as it behaves. There's no way to stop it." [Check inside for warnings.]


A/N: Finale speculation. Warnings for self-harm, blood, and character death.

* * *

The room is strange. It feels like they sprayed chrome over a broom closet. Tiny, enclosed, bright lights and shiny walls. But they have no reflections.

And there's another thing: the tiny room is divided. A glass wall. So she can see him, every inch of him, but feel cold still.

Jemma guesses it was Ward's idea.

There's nothing to do but sit back to back against the glass and wait. There's no control panel for Fitz to rewire, no air duct to climb out of, and the doors are seamless against the wall. The air is leaving in protest of their continued existence. Jemma wants to make a case for it to stay, but like all things natural, it behaves as it behaves. There's no way to stop it.

The game has been explained to them quite clearly. Their friends can see them on the monitors. They give up their position before the clock runs out, and their lives will be spared.

And if they don't?

Well.

Fitz has been quiet. Fitz has been quiet for a few weeks, actually, but she's been wrapped up in other things, bound and suspended in aimlessness. Now would be a good time to talk about it. They're not going anywhere.

"So how are you feeling?"

He laughs humorlessly. "Pretty fucking _shite_, Jem." He only swears in multiples when he's stressed beyond belief. She's never been inside his head but she can always see it on his face, and she knows exactly what that feels like: a piano wire noose around his brain, tight and cutting, a perfect halo of red that smears and drips, an exquisitely painful tension dangling him above solid ground, waiting to slip.

Yes, she knows what that feels like.

She turns around, sitting criss-cross to face the glass. She taps a fingernail to get him to turn and do the same. He's shaking a little.

"It's going to be alright," he says too loudly, "They'll save us."

She just frowns. What is he playing at, trying to comfort her? They're in it together, this time. And somehow, it feels more hopeless than an alien virus. Probably because of the weeks of buildup: something horrifying was inevitable, as sick as that is, and it just happens to be the two of them suffering. For the moment.

Her faces screws up into tension with the thought. "Everything we know is _gone_," she rips suddenly, and she's surprised by the force of it. "Everything we've worked for is meaningless now. Every good thing is—"

"Still good," he finishes, alarmed.

"Why are we here?" she asks, perplexed by it all. "How did we get to this point?" She's lobbing words at the glass like it's the offender rather than the people who put it there.

He opens his mouth but doesn't have an answer.

"I'll tell you how. It's all my fault."

His head is shaking _no_ while hers is nodding _yes_. Another modicum of proof that they're out of sync.

"I dragged you here," she says. She recognizes dimly that she's rocking back and forth but she can't make herself stop.

"Hey, _no_. Jemma, I wanted to do this."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did. I wanted to stay with you," he says seriously, "so I wanted to do this."

She doesn't know what to say to that. It still feels like her fault. It probably always will.

"Jem?" He sounds strange. "Do you think we're going to die in here?"

"Maybe not," she says, and he looks surprised by her answer.

"Why?"

"I heard what Garrett said to you, back at the Hub. They want you. No matter what."

He looks away as the memory knocks him over. She's sorry to bring it up but it's true.

"What about you?" he says after a moment.

She opens her mouth aimlessly. And then closes it.

"There is no me without you," he says resolutely, jumping to her conclusion.

"That's just _not true_," she replies. "You are so much, Fitz."

He doesn't seem to be listening. "I'll tell them I won't work without you," he says, as though they might be accommodating.

"I will not be an implement of evil, Fitz. Not _ever_ again," she declared darkly.

He hesitates for a long moment, lip quivering. She's afraid of what comes next. "They'll listen to me," he says.

She narrows her eyes. "Don't be cruel."

"Are you telling me you'd really rather die?"

"_Yes_."

"So would I!" he roars. "But they won't give me that option."

She doesn't know what to say. It all hurts too much. It hurts too much. The space is so small and they are so alone somehow, even together they are still so alone, and it's a passive viciousness, a cavalier transgression, this separation. The air is leaving them. She doesn't know what to say. Everything's gone so horribly wrong and _it all hurts too_—

"Stop," he begs suddenly, and his hands knock into the glass as though he's forgotten that it's there. She doesn't understand what she's motioning towards until she follows his eyes downwards. _Jesus christ_. She hadn't done that in a while. Fresh blood springs from five crescent-shaped ponds, raised in valleys between hills of thin pink scratches. She's proved her weakness and it burns.

"Sorry," she murmurs.

He moves closer to the glass, anxious now.

She covers her wrist with her palm, presses down. "Sorry," she says again.

"They probably want you too, you know," he says quietly, after a moment's silence.

"That's what scares me," she responds. She swallows hard. "I loved SHIELD."

"I know."

"I loved the work that we did. Because we were helping to save the world. But that's just not true anymore." She's crying now. Her head is pounding. She might be squeezing her arm too hard. She might as well be digging into flesh again.

They sit in silence for a long moment. She doesn't really see how they're getting out of this. The hope she used to have, the wonder-filled girl she was months ago, is vapors now. The team is fractured, the organization defunct. They are broken. What is there to do now?

"Listen, Jemma," he starts. "I'm absolutely certain this is the worst time to be telling you this. I know it is."

Her brow furrows.

"But I don't really see a point in putting it off any longer."

She holds her breath.

"I don't want you to be upset."

She shakes her head.

"I just…" He looks so nervous. "I love you."

She breathes; her mouth twists into a confused smile. "Why would I be upset by that?"

"I don't know, but—"

"You sound like someone's sawing your leg off," she laughs, not without a tinge of hysteria. "Is it such a great burden to love me?"

"I—_no_," he starts, looking so utterly tortured that she stops her hiccupping. "No, it's not."

She just smiles, sad. _Precious_.

He is a man ruled by love.

She just wants to hold him. She wants the glass to disappear. She wants to hush him with her presence and whisper in his ears. Is this what's been binding him the last few weeks? A raw nerve? She wants to hold him. She wants the glass to disappear.

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" he murmurs. Her eyebrows rise, waiting for an elaboration. "Today. The airless box of terror."

She shakes her heavy head. She is compelled by the sight of him so resigned, so she moves up to sit on her knees, touching the glass, and he mirrors her.

"I don't have to tell you to be brave," she says quietly, staring directly into his eyes.

He's the hero.

"Tell me anyway," he begs.

Without thinking, she presses a kiss to the glass where his forehead should be. He closes his eyes for a moment, shaking. This is all wrong.

When she pulls away, she realizes he's crying, and both her hands go up to try and touch his face with such force that the glass between them wobbles on contact. She frowns at it. Her hands go to it again, pushing and testing.

They look at each other at the same time, twin realizations blooming. He grins, tears left forgotten on his cheeks.

"Back up," he says.

"Why do you get to do it?"

"Because! Because sometimes I like to do cool things like smash glass. Also because I'm in love with you and I have a lot of pent up emotion inside me."

She rolls her eyes, brimming with something incomprehensible as he says it again.

"We might not have much time," she points out, uncertain.

He stills. "Probably better that way. Maybe we'll get out of here faster."

She nods before backing up, pressing herself against the wall as much as she can.

"Don't punch it," she says worriedly, before he has the chance to do anything.

"I'm not going to punch it, Jemma," he says.

"I just don't want you to get cut."

"What does it matter," he mutters childishly, rolling his eyes. She doesn't respond, just watches carefully as he readies himself. She takes a deep breath, but the air is weak, and her head pulses.

One swift kick and the sheet cracks. She's honestly surprised. Part of her expected him to bounce off of the force and fall back like a cartoon. He kicks again and the crack splits the panel in half. He kicks again the side farthest away from her and it shatters. She smiles.

He ducks under the frame and steps through. He straightens up and gives her a look that knocks her over. The air has changed a bit, but it's still deadly thin. Now it's just _sweeter_. Like maybe they've already left this place behind.

She doesn't realize until he's in her arms that she was holding them out to him, waiting. The only thing keeping her from the wall is his arms around her middle; otherwise he presses close. Her arms go around his neck and she buries her face. It's all serious again, so serious now that they're touching. She wants to cradle him like a child; she wants to be cradled. There is not enough time.

They sink to the floor. God, he's such a precious thing. The rarest thing she's ever touched.

They end up tangled, which isn't much of a surprise: she's half-straddling his lap, his arms are still around her torso and hers are still around his neck. She could swim face down in his neck for hours. They probably only have minutes.

She doesn't care that they might be watching, friend or foe. She deserves peace, now.

She sits there thinking so hard that she doesn't realize at first, but he's whispering in her ear. She doesn't despair though; it's the same thing over and over again. _I love you, Jemma, god, I love you, I love you so much, Jem, I love you_.

She tries to take a deep breath but it's impossible. This is what it feels like when she panics and breaks, so she's strangely used to the shallow breaths. She can't get a full lung, and it aches, but she can't bring her mind to worry about it.

His mantra is getting jagged, split into shards of devotion as the vacuum of the room cuts his air supply to nothing. Her hand limply goes to touch his cheek. "Shh," she whispers. His hand goes to hers, and she takes it, presses a kiss to his palm.

Her grip loosens; she drifts away.

(He follows.)


End file.
